Tammany Society, or Columbian order
A political organization formed chiefly through the exertions of
William Mooney, an upholsterer in the
city of New York, at the beginning of the administration of
President Washington.
Its first meeting was held on May 13, 1789.
The society took its name from St. Tammany.
The officers of the society consisted of a grand sachem and thirteen inferior sachems, representing the
President and the governors of the thirteen States.
Besides these there was a grand council, of which the sachems were members.
It was a
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Tammany Hall. |
very popular society and patriotic in its influence.
Its membership included most of the best men of New York City.
No party politics were tolerated in its meetings.
But when
Washington denounced “self-constituted societies,” in consequence of the violent resistance to law made by the secret Democratic societies, at the time of the Whiskey insurrection (
q. v.), nearly all the members left it, believing their society to be included in the reproof.
Mooney and others adhered to the organization, and from that time it became a political society.
They met at first in Martling's Long Room, on the corner of Nassau and Frankfort streets.
In 1800 the society determined to build a wigwam, and Tammany Hall was erected by them on that spot.
Many years afterwards they abandoned the old wigwam and made their quarters in a fine building on Fourteenth Street, adjoining the Academy of Music.
Although the actual membership of the society embraced only a few hundred men, it has been able for many years to control and poll many thousand votes and wield an immense power in the politics both of New York City and of the
State.
Its connection with the gigantic frauds of the Tweed ring led to a natural reaction and a temporary check.
But it soon recovered its prestige and increased power.
